When working with Out of Band Management, it is important to understand how collections are populated. Depending on how the system came to reside in the Notification Server database, certain collections will be populated with those systems, while others may not. Understanding how each collection is populated with an Intel® vPro System will enable you to effectively manage these machines with any of the Altiris products that utilize the Intel® vPro AMT technology. Out of Band Management, Network Discovery, and Real-Time Systems Manager provide different functionality, many of which require a system to be assigned to a collection.

Altiris Collection definition: A collection is a static or dynamic list of managed resources (computer resources in this document) based on managed devices in the Notification Server infrastructure. Based off SQL, these collections are usually derived from entries in the Altiris database tables.

Out of Band Management Solution provides six collections by default, and are populated by a variety of methods. The six collections are:

1. All Broadcom ASF Capable computers
2. All configured Intel® AMT computers
3. All Intel® AMT capable computers
4. Duplicated Intel® AMT/Notification Server computers
5. Non-Provisioned Intel® AMT computers
6. Provisioned Intel® AMT computers

Network Discovery Populates the following four collections for use as well:

1. All AMT Devices
2. All AMT Discovered Machines Without an Altiris Agent
3. All ASF Devices
4. All ASF Discovered Machines without an Altiris Agent

Both these sets of collections can be accessed via the Altiris Console under View, Resources, as shown:

The following graph represents a visual flow of how the collections are populated. In way of explanation, the left side items are the Product and the process that populates certain tables. The middle section represent the tables and views populated by the left-side processes (views are not directly updated, but their underlining tables are by the process). The right-side section shows the collections. For example the Out of Band Management Synchronization populates the tables creating the vComputer view, and populates the Inv_OOBMSC_AMT_Device table with computer information. Since the right-side collections for Provisioned and Non-Provisioned systems keys off these tables, the computers will now show up in those collections.

Out of Band Management AMT Collections

Provisioning Collections

Non-Provisioned Intel® AMT Computers

This collection is populated when a system is Pre-Provisioned and a synchronization has occurred - see the Synchronization node under Configuration > Solution Settings > Platform Administration > Out of Band Management > Provisioning > Intel AMT Systems). It also contains systems that are KNOWN to Intel® SCS but are not provisioned for any reason. Some possible causes of a non-provisioned system: Intel® SCS fails to provision them, or a provisioning request is in the Intel® SCS queue still. If the collection is not empty it is advised for the admin to check the Provisioning status under the Intel® AMT Computers. Also check the Intel® SCS Logs for further details (under the Logs folder under Provisioning).

SQL Query behind the Collection:

SELECT ad._ResourceGuid FROM Inv_OOBSC_AMT_Device ad   
JOIN vComputer vc ON vc.Guid=ad._ResourceGuid AND Status!='Provisioned'

Provisioned Intel® AMT Computers

This collection is populated when a system is Fully Provisioned and a synchronization has occurred - see the Synchronization node under Configuration > Solution Settings > Platform Administration > Out of Band Management > Provisioning > Intel AMT Systems).

SQL Query behind the Collection:

Guid IN (
SELECT ad._ResourceGuid FROM Inv_OOBSC_AMT_Device ad   
JOIN vComputer vc ON vc.Guid=ad._ResourceGuid AND Status='Provisioned'
)

Duplicated Intel® AMT/Notification Server computers

This collection contains computers which have the same Fully Qualified Domain Name (FQDN) in both Inv_OOBSC_AMT_Device (which is populated when a system is Fully Provisioned and a synchronization has occurred - see the Synchronization node under Configuration > Solution Settings > Platform Administration > Out of Band Management > Provisioning > Intel AMT Systems) and Inv_AeX_AC_Location (populated by Altiris basic inventory). Basic Inventory is sent from machines that are running the Altiris Agent and are a managed resource in the Notification Server.

SQL Query behind the Collection:

Guid IN (
SELECT ad._ResourceGuid FROM Inv_OOBSC_AMT_Device ad
INNER JOIN Inv_AeX_AC_Location al ON
UPPER(al.[Fully Qualified Domain Name])=UPPER(ad.FQDN)
AND ad._ResourceGuid!=al._ResourceGuid
)

Standard Collections

All Intel® AMT capable computers

This collection is populated using the Out of Band Discovery Task via the Altiris Agent. The Task is located under View > Solution > Out of Band Management > Configuration > Out of Band Discovery. The limitation of the Discovery is it requires the Altiris Agent to be installed. This Task copies down an EXE that will execute and check the target machine for AMT functionality. The query based on this collection searches for '%Intel%' as the vendor, as captured by the Discovery.

SQL behind the Collection:

Guid IN (          
SELECT r.Guid FROM vComputerResource r          
INNER JOIN Inv_OOB_Capability asf ON r.Guid = asf.[_ResourceGuid] 
WHERE
(asf.[AMT Capable]=1 AND UPPER(asf.[ASF Vendor]) LIKE '%INTEL%' AND r.IsManaged=1)        
)

All configured Intel® AMT computers

This collection contains all AMT computers that have AMT inventory data collected (database table: Inv_AMT_Network_Info). This collection is populated by either an Out of Band (OOB) Update AMT Inventory Task or by Network discovery. The Task is located in the Task Server infrastructure as a Server-Task type. Network Discovery must be enabled to collect this Inventory via the policy details. The policy is located at View > Configuration > Solution Settings > Network Discovery > Scan Groups. See the screenshot below on how to enable AMT Inventory with the Discovery scan:

SQL behind the Collection:

SELECT [_ResourceGuid] FROM Inv_AMT_Network_Info

Out of Band Management ASF Collections

All Broadcom ASF capable computers

This collection is populated using the Out of Band Discovery Task via the Altiris Agent. The Task is located under View > Solution > Out of Band Management > Configuration > Out of Band Discovery. The limitation of the Discovery is it requires the Altiris Agent to be installed. This Task copies down an EXE that will execute and check the target machine for ASF functionality. The query based on this collection searches for '%Intel%' as the vendor, as captured by the Discovery.

SQL behind the Collection:

SELECT	
r.Guid FROM vComputerResource r 
INNER JOIN Inv_OOB_Capability asf ON r.Guid = asf.[_ResourceGuid] 
WHERE
(asf.[ASF Capable]=1 and UPPER(asf.[ASF Vendor]) LIKE '%BROADCOM%' and r.IsManaged=1)

Network Discovery Intel® AMT Collections

All AMT Devices

The data collected during a Network Discovery include the table Inv_AMT_Network_Info if the system responds to AMT API calls. This information does not require Intel® AMT Inventory to be collected. This collection is based off of a discovered computer that populates data into this table. In other words this collection contains any system that populated data for Intel® AMT technology.

SQL behind the Collection:

Guid IN 
(
SELECT [_ResourceGuid]
FROM Inv_AMT_Network_Info
)

All AMT Discovered Machines Without an Altiris Agent

This collection requires a discovery to have run and captured the system as an Intel® AMT capable machine, and where the same system has not reported Basic Inventory from an install Altiris Agent. The query is based off data from Basic Inventory > Reported Client Agents. Since the Altiris Agent at least reports itself as installed in this table (Inv_AeX_AC_Client_Agent) any system with a functioning Altiris Agent will have data in this table. This collection specifically filters systems that have data in this table, thus only showing those machines discovered that do not have the Altiris Agent.

SQL behind the Collection:

Guid IN
(
SELECT [_ResourceGuid]
FROM Inv_AMT_Network_Info
WHERE [_ResourceGuid] NOT IN (select  [_ResourceGuid] 
from Inv_AeX_AC_Client_Agent) 
)

Network Discovery Broadcom ASF Collections

All ASF Devices

If during a Network Discovery a computer responds to Broadcom ASF API calls, it populates data into the table Inv_ASF_Network_Info. Any system that has populated data into this table will show up in this collection, regardless if the system has the Altiris Agent install or not.

SQL behind the Collection:

Guid IN 
(
SELECT [_ResourceGuid]
FROM Inv_ASF_Network_Info
)

All ASF Discovered Machines Without an Altiris Agent

This collection requires a discovery to have run and captured the system as Broadcom ASF capable machine, and where the same system has not reported Basic Inventory from an install Altiris Agent. The query is based off data from Basic Inventory > Reported Client Agents. Since the Altiris Agent at least reports itself as installed in this table (Inv_AeX_AC_Client_Agent) any system with a functioning Altiris Agent will have data in this table. This collection specifically filters systems that have data in this table, thus only showing those machines discovered that do not have the Altiris Agent.

SQL behind the Collection:

Guid IN
(
SELECT [_ResourceGuid]
FROM Inv_ASF_Network_Info
WHERE [_ResourceGuid] NOT IN (select  [_ResourceGuid] 
FROM Inv_AeX_AC_Client_Agent) 
)

Conclusion

These collections should cover most basic scenarios for managing Intel® AMT or Broadcom ASF capable systems. If these collections do not provide the scope desired for a collection (for a scheduled Task, Job, or other targeted policy) they can be used as the base for more specialized collections. These collections can be cloned and then parameters or filters added as needed. To clone a collection simply right-click on the collection and choose 'Clone'. Provide an appropriate name and then edit accordingly. Note that these base collections cannot be edited, but cloned copies can.

The one exception are the collections All configured Intel® AMT computers and All Intel® AMT capable computers. These collections have embedded queries and cannot be edited. To use these collections as base collections create a new collection and paste in the SQL query provided for the collection desired.